


Nobody But Us

by wesleyfanfiction_archivist



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-05-06
Updated: 2004-05-05
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:53:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6440104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleyfanfiction_archivist/pseuds/wesleyfanfiction_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few years after the last battle, Wesley is back in Los Angeles. AU, future fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [WesleyFanfiction.net](http://fanlore.org/wiki/WesleyFanFiction.Net). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [WesleyFanfiction.net collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesleyfanfiction/profile).

**CHAPTER 1**

She was sat alone at a table in the smoked filled room. The drunken murmurs and an old jazzy tune invaded her ears and drilled her brain. She felt weak. Her body bruised and beaten up, her defenses low due to the large amount of alcohol flowing through her veins. Everything was the way it was supposed to be.

She once was a slayer: an energetic, enraged creature that took what she wanted without thinking of the consequences. But now that part of her was gone and she was dwelling in her misery, thinking of the things she could have had if things had been different.

She still had her physical strength and abilities and she enjoyed using them in the name of the good causes. But she realized that good causes couldn't be supported just by good will. It had taken her time to comprehend the full meaning of family and friends. The family and friends that should be behind her to give her support. Even though she had them for a while, eventually everyone went on to satisfy their own needs and the bond started to get weak. Before she could sit back to think about it, they were gone. 

Not entirely gone, but everyone had found a family of their own and were devoted to the trivial, regular life they had longed for through the years. Everyone but her, who had thought that it would all come knocking at her door in time. 

She had never been someone who waits for things to happen, but she had relaxed after leaving Sunnydale, enjoying the peacefulness of wandering around the streets of Paris with Buffy, traveling to Italy with Dawn and then going back to the States to meet up with the Angel Investigation/Wolfram & Hart survivors. Everyone she had fought side by side with was now married, dedicated to a career or living happily every after in their own way across the globe. And some of them were dead.

She swallowed the rest of her drink, leaning on the table while she waited for the room to stop spinning. She tumbled across the room, heading to the back door. Once outside, she leaned on the wall for a second, but the cuts in her back made her jumped away. Resigned, she started to walk home. 

***

The moonlight filled the almost unfurnished loft that she called home. It wasn't small or sinister. It was just a lonely place. Walking across the living room area, she set her keys on the coffee table and let her denim jacket drop to the couch. The buttons of her trousers were undone as she walked to the bed to turn on the light on her nightstand. She stripped down to nothing next to the window, fully aware of the show she was displaying for the 16 year old boy whose bedroom was directly opposite hers in the next door building. 

She liked the boy. She liked the way he looked at her whenever they ran into each other downstairs. The way his eyes acknowledged every inch of her body made her feel needed, and during those short seconds she didn't feel so alone. Without turning off the lamp, she abandoned the room as she walked to the shower.

***

She was sitting on the couch with the towel still wrapped around her, enjoying the touch of the humid fabric against the wounds on her back. Her damp hair refreshed her shoulders and her absent eyes were fixed on the TV screen. She wasn't thinking about anything at all. Not even the efforts of the ER staff succeeded at getting her attention.

The blank state of mind made her oblivious to the first soft knocks on the door. It was only when they became louder and more insistent that they reached her eyes and she was startled by them. Faith stood behind the door.

"Who is it?" she asked. There was surprise in her voice. It was the first time anyone had knocked on the door since she started leaving there a year ago. 

"It's Wesley," the distinctive rough voice replied from the other side. Faith unlocked the door and opened it only a few inches, making sure her ears hadn't betrayed her. He was looking at her with a half smile on his face. He looked exactly like she remembered him. She let him in and he entered silently. 

 

Continue...


	2. 2

**CHAPTER 2**

He was entering the bar when he saw her through the smoke curtain. She had gotten up from her table and she was now standing still, supporting herself on the back of the chair for a few seconds, probably trying to get her composure back. 

Faith made her way through the lonesome costumers and exited before he could attempt to walk over to her. It was good to see her, but it was sad seeing her like that. She looked bruised, tired and drunk, a mix that didn't seem like a good sign. 

It had been a while since he had heard from her. It had been a while since he had heard from anyone, actually. He had walked away from Wolfram & Hart when they thought they had completed their mission. He married a woman he'd ran into during a trip to London. She was the woman that he had fancied during his childhood, when he was too shy to say anything or do anything about it. 

But the marriage had been one big failure. One more item to add to that endless list, as he liked to call it. He thought it would be his chance to lead a normal life, but he had been wrong. It didn't matter how hard he tried to stay away from the darkness. The darkness always found him. 

That was when he understood it was inevitable for him. That he'd never be able to walk away from the mission, even if the mission seemed to be complete. "Once a hero, always a hero," his wife had said when he explained the reasons of the endless hours he spent outside at night, going after the evil she had never understood that existed. To her, it was all one deluded excuse. And that was when he understood that he could never lead a normal life, specially with someone that hadn't gone through the same experiences he had lived. 

Seeing Faith in the bar only reinforced his theory. The same theory he had explained Cordelia many years ago. They were meant to be together. He had the suspicion that none of them would be entirely happy outside the dysfunctional family they had come to be. 

"Move, old man," a guy in his twenties pushed him to the side as he made his way across the room. Wesley had been standing in the same spot for a few minutes, hesitating between walking to the bar and ordering a beer or following Faith.

Shaking his head, he pushed the door open and walked outside just in time to see Faith turning around the corner. And so he followed her. 

 

Continue...


	3. 3

**CHAPTER 3**

"Can't stay away from LA, Wes?" Faith asked him, not trying to hide her surprise. Of all the people who would have knocked on her door -and those weren't many- Wes was probably the last one in the list. She had heard he was married and he had settled back in England. For some reason, she pictured him living in a small cottage, with children running around the yard while he sat next to his wife, reading quietly. Obviously, she had given him too much credit. 

The last time she had seen Wesley was right after the Big Battle, being barely able to walk or speak, they hadn't talked much then. And it was only a few days later when Angel told her that Wesley had decided to go back to England. By the time she found out, he was already gone. 

"Are you visiting old friends?" she continued, bringing herself back to present day. Wesley stood in the middle of the living room with his eyes absently fixed on the couch. "You can sit down if you want," she told him, knowing that it wasn't what he was thinking about. She just knew that she had no idea what he was thinking. 

Wesley cleared his throat and sat down. "Thank you," he said. As Faith sat down in the coffee table in front of him, he realized it would be a good time to explain why he was there, only he didn't know quite well why in the first place. 

"I'm moving back to LA," he said without preamble. "And I just saw you at that bar and Iâ€¦" he stopped, hoping the rest of the sentence wouldn't be a cause of distress- "â€¦I followed you here," he admitted.

"Well, that's cool," she shrugged, resting importance to his confession. "I don't mind," she told him. "So why are you moving back?" 

"Iâ€¦ well, I'm divorced now andâ€¦ it's just easier to be here. They don't understandâ€¦" he explained, leaning back and resting his head on the back of the couch, looking up at Faith's ceiling. 

"It sucks being us," she laughed. It was good to know she wasn't the only one who had found it difficult to carry on. "Nobody will ever understand."

"Nobody but us," he nodded. 

"Well, it seems to be working out well for the rest," Faith said. "It's as if they were able to just let it go, ya know? Makes me envious," she admitted. 

"So what about you?" Wesley asked her.

"What about me? Come on, Wes. If you saw me at the bar, you pretty much got the picture," she shrugged. She reached for the remote and turned off the TV. "I just stick to what I know."

"You still fight," he said, noticing the bruises he had spotted at the bar. He reached out and caressed the edge of her cheekbone, making her flinch at his touch. 

"Sorry," he apologized. 

"No problem," Faith stood up and walked to the cabinet on the wall. "Want a drink?"

"Why not?" Wesley got up too and walked next to her as she poured themselves two shots of Tequila. "Sorry, it's all I have," she said, handing him a glass. She raised hers for a toast, though he wasn't actually sure what to toast for. "To a new beginning," she said, unable to hold the laughter. "Oh man, that was lame," she admitted. 

Wesley joined her, amused by her failure and refreshed by her honesty. When his laughter died, he attempted a toast himself. "To the known," he said.

Faith couldn't help to nod in approval and they glasses collided softly before they washed down the amber liquid down their throats. 

"I owe you the salt, but here's the lemon." Faith handed him a slice as she took one to her mouth, nibbling at it and sucking it soundly. "So where are you stayin'?" she asked as she poured another round. 

"A motel a few blocks away. I haven't had time to look for an apartment yet. I was thinking about paying a visit to my old building to see if there's anything available," he explained. He took the second glass and walked back to the couch, setting it on the coffee table. 

Faith drank up her second glass and grabbed the bottle before settling down on the couch with Wesley. "No reservations, Wes? You're really not coming back to the old you, huh?" she teased him as she filled her glass with Tequila one more time. 

"I kind of did," he began. "When I moved back to England, I picked up a lot of old habits. It was quite amusing, to say the least," he laughed. "A third shot, Faith?" he asked her as she was about to take the next drink. Faith glared at him for a second, but then she started to giggle.

"Yeah, you really picked up some old habits, Wes," she said. "Oh shit, I forgot the lemon!" She got and and walked back to the cabinet where she had left the slices. 

"You forgot the salt," Wesley pointed out, when Faith returned back to couch. She threw her head back in a gesture of annoyance. 

"I always forget it," she shook her head. "And it's all the way in the kitchen and I don't want to get up again," she pouted.

Wesley wondered if the Tequila was starting to have an effect on her. Perhaps she was just trying to get him to get the salt from the kitchen. He looked towards it. It couldn't be more than 5 steps away. Turning to face Faith again, he found her kneeling on the couch, right beside him.

"What's--?" he tried to ask, but Faith cut him off. 

"Salt," she said before moving her face to his neck to let her tongue lick his skin. "Not salty enough," she murmured against his neck and moved slightly upwards towards his chin before finding his mouth and no barriers from Wesley's side.

At least not for a few seconds. She traced the surface of his lips with her tongue before pressing her lips fully against his. She had only managed to take a sample of his Tequila scented breath when he tore his mouth away from hers. 

"Faith, don't," he begged reluctantly, cursing himself for picking up morals back in England. "You're drunk." 

 

Continue...


End file.
